Posts Tagged ‘IAC’

A group representing the non-profit Industry Advisory Council met this week with the Obama transition team, and the group is expected to (finally) release its transition documents next week — likely as soon as Monday.

The meeting went very well, according to a Friday e-mail to industry group’s leadership from IAC Executive Director Ken Allen. “They told us that they recognized the importance of IAC and that this was their first meeting with an IT group.” And he indicated that the IAC transition papers will be sent to IAC members and posted on the IAC Web site on Monday.

As IAC announced at the Executive Leadership Conference in October, the group has been hosting a Transition Study Project, which they described as “a group that is developing recommendations on the strategic use of information technology (IT) for the next Administration and Congress.” At the time, the transition group highlighted 10 areas that it was studying:

One of the big parts of the ACT/IAC’s annual Executive Leadership Conference is the awarding of the annual Janice K. Mendenhall Spirit of Leadership Award, the highest tribute that ACT/IAC can bestow on a member of the government IT community.

The actual award was a funny experience. ACT/IAC had given out all of its awards — read all the winners after the break — and the Mendenhall award is the big one of the evening. The late Mendenhall was a long-time GSA leader. I knew her in passing, but she is still well respected — even years later. And the Mendenhall award is one of the highlights of the Executive Leadership Conference each year. And last year’s winner, Ellen Glover, had very nice words to say about Lee.

Dee Lee has a distinguished 30-year government career serving in a wide range of political and career positions and agencies. Throughout her career, she has led by example, thus serving as a role model, mentor, and source of inspiration to other rising stars among the ranks of government and industry. A “straight shooter,” Dee has engendered the respect of both industry and government colleagues by going “above and beyond” to make a difference to others. She has a passion for government, government acquisition and excellence as illustrated by her government career which includes the positions of director of management and chief acquisition officer for FEMA, assistant commissioner of integrated technology services for GSA’s FAS, and director of defense procurement and acquisition policy at DOD.

And when they called Lee to the stage, everybody was on their feet giving a standing ovation. Fortunately or unfortunately, Lee didn’t know she was the winner, so she had gone to her room to work on a presentation she was giving later on in the week.

They ended up giving out the award to Lee on Tuesday morning.

The photo is of the previous Mendenhall award winners who were at ELC holding Lee’s award.

Lee is beyond well respected having served a distinguished government career. After the break, I will post the full ACT/IAC release, but… soon after Lee retired, I wrote FCW’s editorial praising Lee.

As we all know, leadership doesn’t depend solely on one’s title. True leaders are beacons no matter what position they hold, and that has always been the case with Lee. She also is universally liked and respected, which puts her in a small club these days.

Lee is one of those rare people who can build consensus and be forceful at the same time. She listens, yet she manages to keep the ball moving down the field. She has always looked out for what was best for the agency, the government and the citizens of the country for whom she worked.

After that, I got a note from another well-respected fed who has worked in government procurement:

You all know Deidre Lee, or Dee, and I am sure you all know her history as the head of NASA Procurement, where I first met her, then, head of all DOD procurement, then the head of all federal government procurement policy as the Administrator for the Office of Federal Procurement Policy at OMB, then at GSA as an Assistant Commissioner in the old Federal Technology Service, and last as the Director of Management and Chief Acquisition Officer at FEMA within DHS. Dee has not only been an exceptional leader in all of her jobs, but she has been a great voice for the acquisition community everywhere she has been. She is well-liked and respected by everyone who knows her and by thousands more who have not had the specific pleasure yet of getting to know her. I don’t expect to see another person ever who will have been a leader at NASA, DOD, GSA, DHS, and a political appointee leader of OFPP, with a comet’s trail of successful experiences, and the government, the taxpayers, her employees and co-workers are so much better simply because of Dee.

Change is never easy. Despite almost becoming the mantra for 2008, we all know that change is very, very difficult. So whenever I watch other organizations evolve — and let’s be honest, none of us do it particularly well — I always watch with a large amount of empathy. GITEC seems to be one of those organizations right now. And, frankly, the leadership deserves a certain amount of credit because many people thought that the organization simply wouldn’t be able to make it happen.

GITEC’s big event is the annual IPIC, which is one of the big government IT conferences of the year and has been held in Orlando, Fla. for some time in the late winter. IPIC 2009 will mark the 25th anniversary, so it has been around for some time. But these are different and challenging times. There is so much competition for people’s time — and money. And then there are so many conferences out there these days. So GITEC and IPIC have been facing a growing chorus of grumbling for the last several years. And there was some quiet talk about whether GITEC and IPIC were necessary these days. (There were a number of people at IPIC 2008 earlier this year who had not attended in a number of years and were shocked that conference had not evolved.)

As they traditionally do, the GITEC board met on the Saturday, March 1 before IPIC started for one of its regular meetings.

These meetings are traditionally largely a formality. This one ended up being a more… how do they say it over at the State Department… a more frank and honest discussion then I gather typically happens at these gatherings. During that session NASA Goddard CIO and GITEC board member Linda Cureton gave a presentation, which she called, “Heroes needed for GITEC.” You can see that presentation here.

[I should note specifically that I did not get this presentation from Cureton. I should also not that I did not get it from Anne Armstrong, president of the 1105 Government Information Group and my former boss. Armstrong serves as a member of the GITEC executive advisory board. I generally have not spoken to her about the issues facing GITEC and IPIC — either when I was at FCW or since — because I felt it put her in an uncomfortable postion as a GITEC executive advisory board member. All of that being said, there were many people in the session.]

In her March presentation, Cureton essentially says that IPIC — and by extension GITEC — need to change.

It’s interesting because when I spoke to many of the board members and the executive advisory board, at that time there were fairly sharply divergent opinions about the state of the GITEC and IPIC. (The GITEC board is made up of feds. The Executive Advisory Board has no voting authority. They provide advice to the GITEC board.)

Essentially, Cureton said that GITEC is “dying and needs to be saved.” While she highlighted a number of the organization’s strength, she noted that GITEC has a weak management infrastructure, has been unable to expand beyond IPIC, and lacks a strategic focus.

One of the obvious issues facing the GITEC board is the length of IPIC. There have been ongoing complaints about IPIC’s length — Sunday through Thursday — and cost — the Renaissance Sea World hotel just across from Sea World has proven to be expensive.

Cureton recommended shortening IPIC, selecting a location that is closer to Washington, D.C., and having GITEC leverage the ACT infrastructure. (ACT and IAC have full-time, paid staff; GITEC does not. I believe the recommendation would be to have ACT/IAC essentially run IPIC the way the ACT/IAC runs MOC and ELC.)

Again, at the time, there were very divergent opinions on the board. At the time, the consensus of the board seemed to be that, while they agreed with Cureton’s viewpoint, they thought the timing was wrong coming just before the start of IPIC.

Then there is a contingent of GITEC board members who don’t think GITEC nor IPIC is broken. One board member noted that attendance is up — I heard a range of number of government attendees, all of them between 150-165. This board member noted that they have been doing well with sponsors and getting companies on the exhibit floor. And, this board member said, the conference agenda has improved in recent years. And IPIC has given away a lot of money to charities over the years.

By contrast, there are a group of board members — and a number of the Executive Advisory Board — who believe that IPIC simply has not evolved. And there are many people that I spoke to who believe that GITEC is… broken may be too strong, but it may not be that far off.

Unfortunately the board does not hold its meetings in public, so there is no open discussion of these kinds of issues. Several board members said that Cureton raised issues that the board has known about and discussed. Again, the meetings are not held in public, so there is no way of knowing. My sense is that GITEC’s issues have been acknowledged, but they have not been discussed in a truly public way. Instead, they have been discussed around the edges. Again, I should note that I am not in the GITEC board meetings.

I give Cureton a lot of credit for bringing the issues front and center, opening it up to discussion.

And, in fact, I think it had an impact. GITEC is changing. I don’t have any official word from GITEC board members. The current GITEC president, who I believe is FBI’s Gail Scavongelli, and the former president Scott Craig of the Department of Vetarans Affairs, did not respond to various e-mails. I have, however, spoken to many of the board members as well as many of the members of the advisory board. If GITEC officials want to talk, I will certainly post their comments.

What I have been able to cull from those semi-official sources is that there IPIC — and GITEC — are changing and evolving. From what I hear, this will be the last year that IPIC will be held at the Renisance hotel. GITEC is also actively considering shortening the conference — perhaps following the model used by many of the conferences these days where they start Sunday and finish up mid-day on Tuesday. The board is also looking at whether there needs to be a show floor. And, in a significant move, GITEC has also decided not to renew its agreement with Jim Dean, who had run IPIC’s operations for several years and has proven to be very controversial.

Over the weekend, I got a note from Dean:

I have resigned and Technology Forums will be handling IPIC 2009. I will be with GITEC until December 31 working with Mark Hamilton on transition logistics and with Gail Scavongelli, GITEC President, with Admin support.

I will certainly miss relationships established over the years, and working with such notables as Ann Armstrong, Linda Cureton, Elaine Dauphin, Bob Bruce, Bob Woods, Faye Shepherd and so many others too many to mention.

As Dean mentioned, GITEC has apparently hired Technology Forums, apparently without putting the opportunity out to bid. I have no doubt whatsoever that there would have been several bidders. My former employer, the 1105 Government Information Group, has an entire events team — and there are many others out there. Joanne Connelly’s ConnellyWorks, for example, helped me with FCW’s Government Leadership Summit earlier this year and has run the state of Virginia’s Commonwealth of Virginia Innovative Technology Symposium (COVITS) for several years. And there are others… the Digital Government Institute… or Hosky Communications. I don’t fully understand why one wouldn’t put the conference management out for competition.

So… stay tuned. I hope we will hear more as IPIC and GITEC evolve. And a big kudos to Linda Curtin for saying to the board what many have been saying privately.